


four grams of iron

by WolffyLuna



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Age Difference, Blood, Do Not Archive, Dubious Consent, F/M, Kink Discovery, Masochism, Rough Sex, Sadism, Smut, The consent here is borked and it wouldn't be a good idea even if it was consensual, Undernegotiated Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:20:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25588954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolffyLuna/pseuds/WolffyLuna
Summary: Gertrude decides to do something nice for Michael before she sends him off to his death. Shemostlysucceeds.
Relationships: Gertrude Robinson/Michael Shelley
Comments: 3
Kudos: 16
Collections: Battleship 2020, Battleship 2020 - Yellow Team





	four grams of iron

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elijah_was_a_prophet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elijah_was_a_prophet/gifts).



> I hope you like this! It was very fun to write.

The _Tundra_ rolled its way towards Sannikov Land.

Gertrude pored over her hand drawn maps one more time, and compared them to the readings from her handheld GPS. (A discrete eye was etched into its underside. Not much, but enough to push back a little against the fuzz of deception and confusion that surrounded these waters.)

They were just two days out from the island, two days out from the Ritual. The timing was much tighter than she’d like for something so important.

She looked up from her work deliberately. Fussing wouldn’t make the ship go faster.

Michael Shelley sat at a nearby mess table, making a valiant but futile to draw some of the crew into conversation. The crew did not know much, but they knew just enough to be quiet and jittery, waiting for the call to cast someone out. Michael was shy and stuttery enough at the best of times, and while he knew less, he still felt that something was amiss.

Two more days. She just had to make sure he stayed in the dark, and didn’t panic and throw himself overboard. Just two more days

He picked at his steamed carrots while mumbling something about families.

She wondered if this was the last time he’d eat them. Wondered if this would be the last time he talked to a stranger he didn’t know the name of. A lot of lasts rushed by him without his knowledge.

She—she did not regret what she was about to do to him. It was perfectly justified. She was saving the world. The sacrifice of one person to save nearly 7 billion did not require any calculation. And plenty of people wandered into their last meal without ever realising it, or their last conversation. That was almost certainly more common than knowing ahead which one was their last. This wasn’t any different because she knew him, or felt a sliver of affection for him, or felt responsible for it.

...But making sure his second last night was pleasant couldn’t hurt. She did not _need_ to assuage her guilt, but there was nothing wrong with the occasional irrational gesture. Nothing wrong with doing the odd little thing to make yourself feel more justified.

And she’d seen how he looked at her, when he thought she couldn’t see. He’d never admit it. He feared imposing on people, feared being seen to want things. (He feared being disbelieved more, he feared being wrong even more-- and she appreciated the irony there-- but that did not mean he didn’t also fear those other things.)

All it would take was some of her time, and a little effort, and she could give him a penultimate night to remember to his last day. She didn’t relish the prospect, but it would work, and that was all that mattered.

She stood behind him, put a hand on his shoulder. “Shelley?”

He turned in his chair to face her, spoke in his frustratingly quaverous voice. “Yes?”

“I need your assistance with something.”

“Oh, of course!” He gave a meek half smile to the solemn crew as he stood up.

She walked off towards her cabin, waiting for him to follow.

“Uh, what do you need help with?”

“It’s in my quarters.”

“Right, right. Right!” He assumed that it was some delicate issue, likely related to her age, that she did not wish to admit. He felt sorry for her, and determined to do his best to help.

It was annoying. But it would be cleared up soon enough. She walked into her cabin, and he followed in after her.

She unbuttoned her cardigan. Ideally she would be putting on a show of some sort, but if anyone knew how to striptease with a beige cardigan, she was not one rhem. Plus, there was something to be said for efficiency, of getting straight to the action ( ~~getting it over with~~ ) as fast as possible.

She threw it to the floor, and fumbled with the smaller buttons of her blouse.

Michael stood there, watching her, somewhere between stunned and confused. Waiting for an explanation.

“Don’t just stand there,” she said, as she finally freed the top button.

“I, uh—what do you want me to do?”

“You could start by taking your own clothes off.”

His eyes went wide. “—what?”

She paused, looked straight at him. “I _do_ have eyes, you know.”

He hit the land-speed record for flushing, turning bright red in a second flat. “I, uh, I—it’s fine, I wouldn’t want to, uh, to _impose_ , I really thought you hadn’t noticed—”

“Michael.”

“—I really do apologise, you don’t have to do this—unless you wanted to, of course, but—I, uh—” His eyes darted around the room, looking anywhere but her, sclera bright and shiny.

“ _Michael_.”

He ground to a verbal halt.

“Take what is on offer,” she said, enunciating each word as she undid the last of the buttons. “And take your clothes off. Or at least help me with mine.”

“Right. Right, of course.”

He stepped forward, seemingly more comfortable with undressing her than undressing himself. He pulled her blouse off her shoulders slowly, so gentle it almost tickled, being so careful to touch her clothes and not her skin.

The blouse dropped to the floor, neatly folded by shaky hands.

He reached around to her back, nervously, like any minute she’d bolt. He worried at the bottom of his lip as put his hands on her back, ran them down till he found the clasp of her bra, and unhooked it.

He took a moment to stare at her breasts. His expression was a different type of stunned than it had been before. She never considered them all that notable, but beauty was in the eye of the beholder, as it were. 

The sight steeled him—or maybe the impatient glare in her eye did—and he started actually taking off his own clothes.

She shucked off her skirt and stockings and all other relevant articles as she did. She felt no particular need to watch him. It’d be too easy to make him go all shy, and she had a fair idea of what he looked like. He looked like an average white British man in his forties. A belly that had slowly grown since he’d turned thirty, a hairy chest, and a reasonable number of moles, that sort of thing.

She looked up when she was done undressing herself. Her guess was right. Though he did have his own charms. The coiled, springy nervousness that was forced into stillness like a stunned rabbit, the surprised but reasonable jut of his cock. She’d concede that those were attractive.

She pushed him back on to the bed, and he fell like a ragdoll, loose limbed and poseable. She climbed up him, straddled him, and he watched, bottom lip clenched between his teeth. She retrieved a condom from the bolted down drawer, and rolled it down over his cock, feeling it twitch beneath her hands.

He stayed very still. Didn’t dare touch her anywhere she wasn’t touching him.

It was annoying. She was doing this _for_ him, and the bloody least he could do was enjoy it and make the most of it. She put his hands on her hips, and he kept them there when she let go. She’d take that.

She sunk down on his cock. It was... it could have been worse. It wasn’t agonisingly painful. She was not as wet as would have been ideal, and the lube on the condom didn’t help as much as it could have. It was a fight to fit him in, a fight to get seated, but it was a fight she won.

She looked down at him.

He lay frozen, wide eyed and stunned. Nervous. _Scared._ He was being given what he wanted, one last good thing before his final exit, and he couldn’t just take it, not without worrying that it was somehow wrong.

She rolled her hips, and the stillness only grew.

It was maddening. No, not that, _enraging_. She was doing something nice for him. Just for him, this was purely for his benefit. She was giving him what he wanted, giving him something before she sent him off to his death. Maybe if she could explain her motivations, he would understand, stop being so skittish about it. But--no It would ruin her plans. And It’d only make him more skittish, or make him jump off the bed and beg her to explain it to him, explain why him. Or, worse, he’d insist he couldn’t go through with it if she didn’t _want_ him.

She gripped his shoulders, nails digging in and scratching him. “Just _take_ what you want.”

A regrettable outburst, but understandable. It had been a stressful week. It would only be a more stressful 48 hours.

A thin line of blood trickled down his shoulder. Michael watched it, the whites of his eyes wide. And he—‘relaxed’ wasn’t the right word. But the frozen stillness was gone, replaced with a sliver of ecstasy, the thrill of pain mixed with the discovery of ‘ _oh_ , I _like_ that.’

He bucked once under her, and she would take that.

“Y-you,” he swallowed thickly around the words. “You can do what you want.”

She dragged her nails down, slowly slowly slowly, savouring each harsh breath, each swallowed “Sorry” and “Thank you,” that bubbled from his lips

The first time had been an impulse, a break of willpower, even if it was an ultimately enjoyable one. But it was even better when it was deliberate. She could savour the feeling of his skin catch under her nails, watch the red lines go down his chest, the blood bubbling up to the surface in their wake. She’d had to spend so long being careful, schooling her emotions, because her enemies would drink up any drop of fear she felt. But now she could just let go. Let out her frustrations on a reasonably willing body. Let it out on the person who caused it.

(That was not a fair description. The cultists were the real cause. Shelley was just _in reach_. But he had created his own fair share of frustration over the years. And soon the distinction between Shelley and what was being brought into the world would be merely academic.)

He scrunched his eyes up, assaulted by the waves of sensation, and trying his best not to let go.

And that was a lovely sight too.

She could feel the fear coming off him, floating in the air like a miasma. She tried to ignore it. It wasn’t relevant to her. His other reactions were. But not this one. (She’d gotten good at lying to herself, that she wasn’t ever in it for the fear, that she was not so tightly bound yet, and never would be.)

Ignoring it didn’t help.

She felt it. It was like a brand going across her brain, an electrical current passing through her, the Knowing flowing into her.

He was so, _so_ scared. He didn’t know to expect this, he thought she was just asking for help. And when she asked—he wouldn’t say no. Because he did want to help. And he did want this. He just never expected to be offered it. Never thought about what it would mean. Never examined the idea beyond idle fantasy, never looked at how it would translate into the real world.

And now he had what he wanted, unexpectedly and beyond his control, because who says no to Gertrude Robinson? And then he was attacked, ripped apart—and it was glorious. More transcendent than anything he could imagine. But completely beyond his control. And that was as terrifying as it was thrilling.

He feared that they would be heard. That someone would walk past the door and hear them and know.

He feared that Gertrude knew. Well, he knew she knew he was interested, that cat was out of the bag. But he feared that she knew _how_ much. That she could just look into his eyes and _see_ it.

Her fingers dug in harder. If only he knew.

Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes, and rolled down his checks properly as he begged “Don’t stop, don’t stop—”

“Of course I won’t.” Someone kinder, or more versed in these matters, would have added something along the lines of ‘not when you beg so prettily.’ They would have said something nice. But she wasn’t doing this for him, not any more. She wouldn’t stop because she wasn’t done. He was just a very convenient punching bag.

His body convulsed under her, torn between flattening out in pleasure and curling up in a protective fetal position, racked with sobs of mixed ecstasy and terror.

She drew more lines on his chest, focusing more on the feel under her fingers, the trails of blood, than the bucking and writing under her. (Not that that didn’t feel good, but she was always more of a visual person.) His torso was a fractal criss-cross of cuts, that she kept adding to, line after bloody line, getting absorbed in her delicious task.

He came with a choked sob, and she realised that she would eventually have to stop, especially if she wanted him useful. It was a disappointment to stop. She was filled with a tension, the feeling of half completed catharsis.

But needs must. It would have to do.

And at this point, she could at least argue that she had done something nice for him.

She unseated herself, removed the condom, tied it off, and placed it in a nearby waste basket.

Michael fought to get his breath back. “I can—I can do something for you.” He swallowed thickly. “I can try.”

“There is no need. Get out of my room.”

“Right, right, of course.” He half fell off the bed, and grabbed his clothes. He pulled on his trousers, threw on his shirt. He buttoned it with numb fingers, trying to get himself presentable. Trying to stop crying. His whole body shook with the effort.

Little dots of blood soaked through onto his shirt. If she squinted just right, she could see the angry red lines through the thin white fabric.

“Thank you,” he stammered, not quite sure what to say as he left.

“You’re welcome.”


End file.
